Epilogue

"Marco, if you don't sit still, I'm going to have to shoot you." Tobias said dryly, sitting in a chair, with a very annoyed looked on his face.

"Shut up." I muttered, pacing back and forth. My ears straining for the sound of Jake's car. The lights from the Christmas tree in the corner cast the room in its brilliant lights, shining off the bulbs and sparkling decorations. Cassie was adjusting the stockings she had put up on the fireplace, trying to hide a grin.

"You're acting like a teenage girl on her first date." Tobias commented again, rolling his eyes making Cassie snicker and turn away.

"Shut up." I said again, trying to hide the snort of laughter, "Can't help it, alright? This is-"

"The first time Ax is going to be home for Christmas, and he gets to stay, rehab is all done. Blah, blah. Blah." Tobias grinning over his wine glass.

"Tobias- shut up." I grinned back, when the flash of headlights shone through the window.

"Oh look, Jake's back." Tobias said brightly, enjoying the little bit of torment he was putting me through.

"Okay, seriously, I should really smack you." I said happily, bouncing on the balls of my feet as I heard the front door open, a quiet laugh echoing through the house.

"Honey!" Jake, "We're home!"

"In here Jake." Cassie called, patting me on the shoulder as she poured a couple more glasses of wine for the two men coming in.

Alright maybe I ran like a little girl and hugged Ax.

"I missed you so, so, so, so, so much!" I laughed, swinging him around in my arms. Ax laughed, his arms clinging around my neck.

"Marco! You saw me last week!" He chided, not really minding.

"Feels like forever." I pouted, letting his feet touch the ground. We smiled at each other before I was roughly pushed away.

"Stop hogging him!" Cassie growled, grabbing Ax in a tight hug.

"Hi Cassie." Ax said brightly, hugging her back tightly, kissing the top of her head. She giggled lightly, kissing his cheek as she stepped back. Ax looked up at Tobias and shot him a grin, "Hi nephew!"

Tobias groaned, "I'm really going to kill Marco for telling you that."

"Killjoy!" I stuck my tongue out at Tobias, who flipped me off. I wrapped my arm around Ax's shoulders, leading him to the couch as Cassie passed first Jake, and then Ax, a glass of wine.

"So-" Ax said slowly after he took a sip, "Jake mentioned presents-?"

"That I did." Jake laughed.

"Actually, we all have one huge present for you." Cassie said, going over to the tree, pulling a large box she meticulously wrapped, Tobias helping her considering it was a little heavy. They placed it at Ax's feet and he blinked, handing me his glass of wine before he slowly took the paper off, careful not to rip any. Apparently, according to the doctors, Ax never lost the OCD, and I itched to help him.

When he finally unwrapped the damn thing and opened the box, he looked in confusion as he picked up a small leather bound book, tracing the gold letters on the front. There was only a title, no name of an author or anything else.

"So- we requested that the doctors never tell you about what happened while we were Animorphs." I started, not really sure where to.

"Yeah." Ax said nodding, flipping through the book absently, "Every time I asked they always avoided it."

"That's because we wanted to tell you everything ourselves." Cassie continued softly, sitting beside Jake on the couch across from us, "Problem was, it would take a really long time to explain everything."

"Until Rachel's mom cleaned out the attic, found a bunch of things she never threw away when Cassie died." Tobias sipped his wine, "There were a bunch of notebooks, memoirs I guess, of some of the battles we went through, told from her perspective."

"You see Ax." Jake continued for him, "At one point we all decided that it was kind of stupid to do all this fighting, and if we did die, if the Yeerks got us, there would be nothing left behind. No one would have ever known what we went through." He paused, looking over at me, "So Marco suggested that we all write everything down. We kept some of books hidden, scattered everywhere so no one ran across them." He laughed, "As a consequence we ended up forgetting about them ourselves."

"It took us a while to find yours." I laughed, "But, here they all are."

Ax looked down at the book in his hand, his eyes wide as he stared at the words.

"They read like a story," Cassie said softly, "Each of them are marked in the order of when they happened."

"There's even a written account of Elfangor's story." Tobias said softly, "And the Hork-Bajiir. I had Toby tell me it again."

"We didn't think it'd be fair for you to learn everything we've been through- what you went through- by textbooks and people who barely knew what happened." I whispered, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

"This- this is everything?" He whispered, not looking up at us, tracing the words "The Invasion" over and over again.

"Yes. Even your own words." Cassie whispered, reaching into the box and pulling out two more, "This one is my account of when we found you, and this one is the first written by you."

"Even Rachel?" He breathed, and we all nodded.

"Yeah, Rachel is in there too."

He finally looked up, tears swimming in his blue eyes, "Thank you." he said softly, flipping to the first page, before closing the book and holding it out to Jake.

"Can- I don't want to read these by myself." he said, as Jake blinked in surprise, slowly taking the book from him, "Please?"

Jake looked at us, wondering if any of us were really ready to hear this. Cassie looked like she was about to cry before she nodded, "Maybe... Maybe we need this as much as he does?"

Tobias was slowly nodding too, but didn't say anything.

And me? Maybe I didn't want to hear this all again. None of us actually read them, any grammar mistakes or spelling- nothing had been changed or fixed because we couldn't bring ourselves to actually read them.

"Yeah." I whispered, tucking Ax into my side.

Jake swallowed, giving a nod as he opened the book, and began.

"My name is Jake-"

The End